Posts by Nate Yapp

As directorial debuts go, Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is quite impressive. Although Argento would perfect his craft in later films, Bird maintains a consistent veil of suspense, mixing in a touch of ultraviolence and a twist of Hitchcock. As such, it is a solid example of the quintessentially Italian giallo film.(read more...)

Mad Love is a curiosity of 1930s Hollywood horror. Rather than a tale of a monster on the loose or of a mad scientist with a lust for glory, Mad Love is about a man at loose ends and a mad man who happens to be a scientist. It isn't that some of the movie's themes are sexual; the film dives head-first into the sea of sexual desire and the destruction that occurs when it is sublimated and perverted.(read more...)

Ah, the slasher sequel. So often the bane of the horror reviewer's existence, because, half of the time, the sequel has almost nothing to do with its predecessor. The other half, the sequel is such a perfect carbon copy that you might as well reprint your review of the original, with a few minor tweaks. Of course, every once in a while you get a movie like Sleepaway Camp II, which follows the events of Sleepaway Camp without repeating them. Sadly, however, this does not make the film all that interesting.

Please be warned -- the following review contains a massive spoiler for the first Sleepaway Camp movie. By continuing, you acknowledge that you have seen that film or that just don't give a fig.(read more...)

I cannot stand listening to either William Friedkin or William Peter Blatty talk about The Exorcist. They have a tendency to speak at great length, not about what they intended, but what the film means to audiences everywhere. How it shakes the foundations of their faith, makes them question their reality, and turns their view of good and evil on its head. It sounds very nice, but even assuming that what Friedken and Blatty say is true, such statements limit the effectiveness of The Exorcist specifically to those people with a strong monotheistic religious bearing. Personally, however, I find it difficult to recommend the film to much of anybody.(read more...)